From where does your team but its wires?

We heard that stranded is best for the bot’s rugged application.
Who sells “good” wire, of all gauges, for a “great” price, please?

I haven’t done much price checking I suppose, but we usually order our wire from Digikey. They have pretty much every kind of wire you would need.

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/cables-wires/single-conductor-cables-hook-up-wire/474?FV=ffe001da&mnonly=0&ColumnSort=0&page=1&stock=0&pbfree=0&rohs=0&cad=0&datasheet=0&nstock=0&photo=0&nonrohs=0&newproducts=0&k=stranded+wire&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25&pkeyword=16+gauge+wire

5402 bought a bunch last year from PowerWerx and were quite satisfied. I especially like the zip cord for keeping wiring a little neater.

4901 bought some off eBay from a car audio supplier the year before and were also satisfied. No particular recommendation on a store though; I can’t find the purchase record from back then.

Team 8 has also had success with Powerwerx—good quality wire at a very respectable price from what we found.

Just bought red/black zip cord from Powerwerx(arrived yesterday) and servo/PWM wire from RobotShop (arrived Saturday).

One more I’ll add to the list: Cross The Road sells 12 AWG wire on their site that is, from what I understand, the same stuff used in their motor controllers (and that’s really good wire). It’s a little more expensive than Powerwerx per foot, but it’s better once you get above 25 feet and CTRE is offering free shipping to the lower 48 on $100+ orders. Certainly worth considering if you already needed to place an order there.

Once again, thank you so much for the quick replies and links in Chief Delphi on the same subject. What a wonderful support you all are! :slight_smile:

We bought some spools of the red/black zipcord from Powerworx and from CTRE some CAN cable and 12AWG silicone wire.

I wouldn’t recommend anything but stranded wire, unless you had some kind of custom soldered board that used hookup wire or something.

Thank you all so much for the great suggestions, recommendations and warnings. After comparing the costs of 100 feet, 12 ga, stranded copper wire with red and black pvc-jacket, we decided to purchase two spools: one (less expensive) with the white outer sheath and a zip cord, for our practice wiring from Monoprice https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023902&p_id=2818&seq=1&format=2
And one zip-line spool with which we will do our final wiring from Newark (formerly Stellar): http://www.newark.com/stellar-labs/24-16096/jacket-material-pvc/dp/44AC9229
We compared the 100-foot equivalent price (shipping to south-central Michigan) from 8 companies and found these to be for us the least up-front cost.
If you have any further suggestions or warnings, please let us know, otherwise thank you so much for this help. :slight_smile:

Good choice on the monoprice for practice robot. I actually got in this thread just to see if Allen Gregory had already pitched it, and if not I was going to.

It’s cheap and convenient to keep wire together. By no means a bad choice for a comp bot, but I do prefer the flexibility of high strand zip cable. I think it’s worth the extra money, but electrical and programming is what I do so it’s easy for me to want to spend the extra money there.

Just to clarify, stranded wire is not more “rugged” than solid wire. Indeed, solid wire is slightly less susceptible to damage from a pinch point. Solid wire can be bent to a tighter radius - once or maybe a few times- and it will stay bent. Solid wire is preferred for homes and other buildings for these reasons - because it stays bent, it is easier to arrange wires into easily traceable routes. The reason we use stranded on robots is the same reason it is used in automobiles - robots and cars move. Stranded wire is far less susceptible to fatigue failure caused by repeated back and forth motion or vibration.

Our team has been purchasing wire from Maney Wire (www.maneywire.com) for years. Their prices are not listed on their website but if you call them you can get a quote. We purchase the automotive wire which is rated to 60 volts DC. It has thinner insulation and is very flexible. We just purchased the following 100 foot spools: #22 red and black for $5.39 each, #16 red and black for $8.97 each and #12 red and black for $17.90 each.